Cigarette Holes
by nikiness
Summary: "Sometimes he thought the waiting was going to kill him before he even made it to the airlock."


**Title:** Cigarette Holes  
**Author:** Niki Blue  
**Rating:** R  
**Character(s):** River/Jayne  
**Prompt:** 056. Black  
**Word Count:** 1231  
**Summary:** "Sometimes he thought the waiting was going to kill him before he even made it to the airlock."

It weren't all that surprising, waking up in the airlock with his head pounding and his gut clenched up in knots.

Weren't that suprising, because he'd been expecting this for a while. Waiting for it really. It tingled down his spine every time she touched his hand at the dinner table, right in plain view of everyone and their gorram mother. It made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up every time Mal looked at him sideways.

Sometimes he thought the waiting was going to kill him before he ever made it to the airlock. He had these crazy thoughts 'bout how it was going to happen. Would he be caught with her writhin' underneath him and her leaving long bloody lines down his back with her fingernails? Or would it be something simple? Something little? Like a look he gave her when she stole food off his plate. Or the way she couldn't stop rubbin' up against him, even when they were in the middle of the gorram mess.

In the end, it'd been a slip of the tongue during breakfast. He hadn't seen it coming, hadn't even noticed until everything had stopped and seven pairs of eyes had been burnin' cigarette holes in his skin. She'd asked him to pass the salt and he'd said "Sure thing, baby doll" and then everything was falling apart.

Everything was falling apart and he was waking up in the airlock and freezing and _gorram_, did his head hurt.

"You dead yet, Jayne?"

He groped in the dark for the com that he knew would be lying somewhere by his feet. Reason why Mal got shot so much, he couldn't just put a bullet in a man. He had to talk 'em half to death first. Make sure they understood their crimes or somethin' cockamamie like that.

"If yer gonna kill me, just do it. Don't talk my ear off first, _dong ma_?"

Worst thing about it was he could hear her cryin' and carryin' on on the other side. Made his chest feel tight and sore.

"Oh, I'm gonna kill ya," the captain told him. "But first me and you are gonna discuss 'xactly what you been doin' with the doc's sister. 'Cause I been 'spectin' somethin' for goin' on a week now, Jayne. And now you've gone and given me proof."

"Don't you make her watch," he growled. "You go right ahead and you kill me but _gorram_ it, don't you make her watch."

A pause. And then, "You ain't going all noble on me, are you, Jayne?"

"Looks like," he resonded. River's sobbing was getting softer. Either Simon'd drugged her up again or they were takin' her out of the cargo bay. He hoped it was the latter but knew it was probably the former. He didn't blame the doc none. It was all he knew- medicatin' and shots and pills and drugs. Weren't nothin' he didn't think couldn't get fixed with medicine.

Still didn't mean he liked seein' the girl all glassy eyed and slack jawed and slurrin' her words like she'd done drank herself under the table.

Jayne stumbled to his feet, the poundin' in his head making it hard to stand up straight with out losing his balance. He swayed from side to side, one palm flat on the bulk to keep himself from going down on his knees.

He felt his way to the window, pressing his face against it. She looked so little, sitting there on her knees, rockin' back and forth. Her arms were clutched awkwardly to her own chest and her little cheeks were stained with tear tracks.

He barely got a good look at her 'fore Mal stepped in front of the window and took her place.

"Think you've done enough lookin', if what I'm thinkin' you been doin' to that girl is right, Jayne," he snarled. "I told you, first time you stepped foot on this boat, I told you that you keep your hands to your _gorram_ self. I pegged you for a lot of things, Jayne Cobb, but rapist weren't ever one of 'em."

Jayne snarled, his lips turning up and baring his teeth. "I ain't no rapist. I ain't no _gorram_ Reaver. Whatever we did- and I ain't sayin' we did _anything_- was consensual."

"I don't like secrets on my boat. I don't like secrets on my boat that involve my hired gun havin' "consensuals" with a girl who's crazier than fox in a hen house."

River was trembling. He could see her outta the corner of his eye, just past Mal's shoulder. "She loves him!" she pleaded. "She loves Jayne Cobb! She loves him and he loves her and they love each _other_!"

And it didn't make him feel too good to realize she was right. Made him feel all kinds of tremble-y himself and it didn't quite sit right in his stomach. Clenched him all up in knots and it weren't a feeling that made him all entirely comfortable.

"You got that little girl over there thinkin' you love her, Jayne."

Mal's voice was hard and cold, like steel. And when Mal used that voice, it usually meant someone was gettin' on the wrong end of a bullet or standing on the wrong side of the airlock.

"You set this little girl straight, Jayne and I might just chalk this up to a lapse of judgement," he said, leaning a little to the left and blockin' River from him again. "You set her straight and we'll call this even and I'll put you off on the next rock we pass instead of lettin' you off right now."

Jayne's skin was feelin' too tight for his bones. Tight and hot and his gut felt like it was tied up in fishermans knots and sweat was makin' the skin between his shoulder blades itch. Mal shifted to the right and he could see her, lookin' at him with those big dark, knowin' eyes and not for the first time, he wanted to know just what she knew.

She was lookin' at him with those glassy, drugged up eyes and whimperin' and wringing her little hands in her lap and he shoulda been able to look right at her and say "Hell girl, I don't love you. Get that _go se_ outta your head right now, 'cause Jayne Cobb don't love nobody but himself."

Jayne Cobb believed in Jayne Cobb. He believed in self-preservation and coin and any man for himself. He believed that bein' brutal got you results and well, it'd always worked for him the past.

But Jayne Cobb hadn't even been in love before either.

"I can't do that, Mal," he said softly, head down so he didn't have to see her tear streaked face any more. "I ain't gonna tell a lie to that girl just to save my own hide."

"Wrong answer," Mal gritted through clenched teeth. "Wrong _gorram_ answer."

Jayne had his eyes closed when Mal punched his fist angrily on the console, openin' up the air lock. He had his eyes closed like somehow that would ease the feeling of his body ripping apart. Like it would stop him from hearing his girl and Kaylee screamin'.

Like it would stop him from dyin'.

But it didn't.

At least he could die knowin' that he'd done one right thing in his life.


End file.
